“Is he on all three crew manifests too?” Hal asked me teasingly.
I hauled them out of my boat bag and brandished them at him. “Why don’t you look and see for yourself?”
“Children, kindly control yourselves,” Nigel said reprovingly. “Toni, put those away. We don’t need to be waving those about in here.”
“What are those?” asked the wife of the man across the table.
“Some documents from Scotland Yard,” Nigel said.
“Then why does she have them?” the man asked.
Nigel shrugged. “Because she has a purse and I don’t.”
The couple was prevented from asking any more uncomfortable questions by the arrival of the captain and Chief Gerard. Captain Sloane was all smiles, but Gerard looked like he’d bitten into an unripe persimmon.
Nigel jumped to his feet and performed introductions all around.
“Now then,” said the captain, “Dr. Shapiro, Chief Gerard has finally found time for that tour of the engine room you requested. Isn’t that nice?”
Hal looked bewildered. I nudged him. “Don’t you remember? You asked about that at the beginning of the cruise.”
Hal made a creditable recovery, although I didn’t think there was any danger of him winning an Oscar anytime soon. “Oh, right. I’d forgotten all about that. Do you want to do that right now?”
Gerard shook his head. “Finish yer dinner. I’ll meet ye at the main desk and we’ll go from there.”
“Great,” Hal said. “I’ll be there. Thank you.”
Gerard left. Captain Sloane nodded to us and went back to his table.
As our waiter was clearing the dinner dishes preparatory to serving dessert, Officer Lynch came over to our table. “Chief Superintendent? The captain tells me you need to talk to me about an important matter. Would you accompany me to the bridge? We can talk in my cabin.”
“Certainly,” said Nigel. “Fiona, go ahead and have dessert. I’ll see you back at the cabin.”
“Very well, dear,” said Mum.
“Shall we, Officer Lynch?”
And they left.
That meant it was now my turn.
I didn’t have to wait long. Rob came over to our table and sat down in the chair Nigel had vacated. “Would you folks like to join me for cordials? I’m off duty.”
Hal shook his head. “I’ve got a date with the chief engineer. I’m finally going to see the engine room.”
“Terrific,” Rob said. “I hear it’s pretty impressive.”
“You’ve never seen it?” I asked.
“Only through a window. Fiona? Cordials?”
“Thank you, Doctor, but I’m fair knackered. I think I’ll turn in early. We have to be off the ship by seven tomorrow, you know.”
“I guess that just leaves you and me,” he said to me. “Shall we? I need to talk to you about something anyway.”
“Okay,” I said, “but let’s go to the infirmary first. There’s something I have to check.”
“Let’s go, then.”
I stood up. “Hal, Mum, I’ll see you later. This won’t take long.”
“Okay, kitten.”
“Be careful, sweetie.”
I waved to both of them. Officer Grant intercepted Rob and me as we moved toward the door. “You’ll get there faster if you take the forward elevator.” He led the way into the kitchen and pointed in the direction of the elevator.
We thanked him. It wasn’t as if I’d never been on that elevator before, but Officer Grant didn’t know that unless the captain had told him, and surely Rob used that elevator all the time.
Rob unlocked the door to the infirmary and let us in. “What is it you have to check?”
“I need to swab the cooler for blood,” I told him. “Got a swab I can use?”
“Blood?” He frowned at me. “There’s no blood in the cooler. That cooler is pristine. I cleaned it myself.”
Aha, I thought. Have I caught you in another lie? “You cleaned it? I thought you said it was cleaned between cruises. You mean to tell me you did that? I thought somebody from housekeeping did that.”
Rob recovered well, but I saw a blush creeping up his neck. “Oh, right, they do. I meant that I cleaned it again after Mrs. Levine was in there.”
“Why? Mrs. Levine wasn’t bleeding.”
The blush crept higher. “It’s just policy to clean it after a body’s been in it, bleeding or not.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said. “We have policies like that at the hospital too. So when you cleaned it, did you get down around the edges and in the corners with a swab?”
“Well, no, I didn’t go that far.”
“Well, that’s what I want to do,” I told him. “I need a swab. Got one I can use?”
“I’ve got swabs, but look here,” he objected. “Just whose blood is it that you’re looking for?”
“Leonie’s.”
The blush was almost all the way up to his chin. Rob was getting angry. “Leonie wasn’t bleeding either. She was dead.”
“Ah, but was she?”
“What the bloody hell are you getting at, Toni?”
“Rob. Calm down. I’m not accusing you.”
“The hell you’re not!”
“Can we sit down and discuss this?”
Rob folded his arms across his chest defiantly. “I stay mad better standing.”
I laughed. “Now you sound like me when I fight with Hal.”
Rob expelled a breath and dropped his arms. “Come on, Toni. You and Hal don’t fight. Do you?”
“Certainly. Because afterwards we can have make-up sex.”
Rob laughed. “Let’s go into my office. We can sit down there.”
I hadn’t known Rob had an office, although it made sense. Doctors do have offices. Rob led me around a corner into a tiny room containing only a desk, a bookcase, and an extra chair. He sat at his desk and I sat in the extra chair, which wasn’t especially comfortable. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet on his desk. “Okay, Toni, say what you came to say. I’ll try not to get mad.”
“Good,” I said, “because I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“That sounds ominous. Are you sure you’re not going to accuse me?”
“Not necessarily, but it may sound that way. I’m going to propose some scenarios, and you’re going to explain to me why it couldn’t have happened that way.”
“Okay, fire away. I promise I won’t get mad.”
“Let’s start by supposing that Leonie wasn’t really dead when you put her in the cooler.”
He put his feet down and sat up straight. “Oh, come on. We’ve been through this before. What are you getting at?”
“Suppose she was still alive when she was taken out of the cooler and was strangled to finish her off?”
“We didn’t see any evidence of that,” Rob protested.
“No, we didn’t. That’s because her neck was crushed in the roof.”
“Are you suggesting that I took her out of the cooler and strangled her? Because I didn’t. How could I? Dave Lynch was here too. We left together. Just ask him.”
“Nigel is doing that as we speak. One thing that’s been bothering me is how anyone could have known exactly when you and Officer Lynch left the infirmary so he could go in and get the body and crush it in the roof. Well, what if it was you and Officer Lynch who took the body out of the cooler?”
“Toni, this is preposterous. Do you really think so little of me?”
“Rob, calm down. You promised you wouldn’t get mad. This is all hypothetical.”
“Are you sure about that? It sounds pretty accusatory to me.”
“Hal and I were talking about a patient I had once in the emergency room when I was an intern. This man came in with a serious head injury
. After we’d evaluated him, we called for radiology to do skull X-rays. While we were all out of the room, he regained consciousness and got up off the gurney and went wandering off. We found his dead body in the stairwell.”
“So what does that have to do—”
“What if Leonie regained consciousness in the cooler?”
“She couldn’t have. I’m telling you, she was dead. Ask Lynch.”
“Lynch isn’t medical,” I said. “If you told him she was dead, why wouldn’t he believe you?”
Rob put his face in his hands. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
“Picture it,” I went on. “She wakes up in the cooler. She’s imprisoned in this small, cramped, cold, metal space in the dark. She panics. She starts yelling for help and pounding on the door.”
“Nobody would hear her outside of the infirmary,” Rob pointed out.
“Are you sure?”
“I didn’t hear anything. Neither did Lynch. Ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“Okay. What if you and Lynch were still in the infirmary? Or what if Lynch left and you didn’t?”
“Why wouldn’t I leave when Lynch did?”
“This was the girl you once wanted to marry. The girl you were engaged to who broke up with you. The girl who left you for Lynch. The girl you stalked until you ended up on the same cruise ship together. The girl who—”
“Stop!” Rob cried. “Why are you tormenting me like this?”
“Just bear with me for a little while longer. Remember, this is all hypothetical. Your job is to show me why it couldn’t have happened this way.”
Rob threw his hands up in the air. “I keep telling you. Just ask Lynch!”
“Don’t worry. Nigel is asking him as we speak. It will be interesting to compare your answers with his.”
Rob groaned.
“Here’s the way I see it,” I pursued. “You get called to the captain’s cabin in the wee hours of the morning. You go there only to see the only girl you ever loved lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor. The girl who left you for another man. The girl who—”
Rob slapped his desk with the flat of his hand. In the cramped space of his office it sounded like a thunderclap. “You’re doing it again. Cut it out, can’t you?”
“Sorry,” I said, although I really wasn’t. I was on a roll. “As I was saying; here’s the girl you loved and swore that if you couldn’t have her, nobody else would either.”
“I never said—”
“We’re still hypothetical here, so shut up and listen. You’ve got a golden opportunity here. Once you take her down to the infirmary, you can do whatever you want with her, and no one’s the wiser.”
“Except Lynch,” Rob pointed out.
“Except Lynch,” I agreed. “But you could have fooled him. You could have pretended she was dead and he wouldn’t have had a clue.”
“Sure,” Rob said, “but what for?”
“I think you really did think she was dead. You were probably glad that someone else had saved you the trouble of killing her yourself.”
“Why would I want to kill her?” Rob demanded. “I loved her.”
“But she didn’t love you, and you didn’t want anyone else to have her if you couldn’t.”
“You’re making me sound like a stalker, and I’m not.”
“Well, yes you are,” I told him. “I’ve been there, and I know what I’m talking about. You kept track, you said. You probably kept calling her to ask her why. She took a cruise job to get away from you. So you took a cruise job too.”
Rob got up and began pacing. “Toni, this is preposterous. I did no such thing! You—”
“I think you’re protesting too much, but no matter. We’re still hypothetical, remember. So you got here and found her hooked up with your childhood friend, Officer Lynch. Then she started spending time with the captain. So instead of holding a grudge against Lynch, you both held one against the captain.”
Rob sat back down and put his face in his hands.
“See, by the time the captain called you, there was nobody else in his cabin but him and Leonie. You and Lynch both assumed the captain had assaulted her, which resulted in her severe head injury.”
“Wait,” Rob interrupted me. “Are you saying somebody else was in the captain’s cabin when Leonie was attacked? Who?”
Of course. We hadn’t talked to Rob since the captain and Sarah had made their big confession. “That’s right, you don’t know. It was Keith, the captain’s son. He didn’t take the news well that he had a sister, and they got into a fight and Keith knocked her down. The captain kicked Keith out before he called you and Lynch.”
“Wow,” said Rob. “I’m sure glad to hear that you don’t think I did that too. So now what?”
“You were supposed to treat her—stitch her up, start an IV, get her medevaced to the closest hospital,” I said. “But instead you told Lynch she was dead, and after he helped you put her in the cooler, he left.”
“We both left,” Rob said. “I told you.”
“Quit interrupting me. You were just cleaning things up when you heard her yelling and banging around in the cooler. You went back to investigate, found her alive, and strangled her to finish her off. And then you realized you’d left a ligature mark on her neck. No way you could hide that, so you had to disfigure the body.”
“Okay, suppose you’re right. How the hell did I get the body up on the roof and crush it by myself?”
“You’ve got a point there,” I admitted. “So maybe Lynch didn’t leave after all. Maybe he helped you. After all, he had a grudge against the captain too. That way he couldn’t have reported back to the captain that Leonie had died. See, that was one reason why I ever suspected you in the first place. You said you called the captain and told him she died, but the captain said you didn’t. And apparently Lynch didn’t either.”
“So you’d take the captain’s word but not mine.”
“Not necessarily. But it’s a discrepancy that hasn’t been resolved. It’s little things like that that can make or break a case. You also lied about not having had a body in the cooler until Mrs. Levine, but it absolutely reeked of disinfectant. It wouldn’t smell like that if it hadn’t been cleaned since the last cruise.”
“Did it ever occur to you that it may have been cleaned after Mrs. Levine was in it?”
“No, because you didn’t even know she was there until I told you, and when we went to look she was gone. Unless you were lying about that too.”
“Why would I do that, pray tell?”
“Well, you could have killed her too. You know how she was, always talking and spreading rumors. Maybe she said something that you thought was incriminating for you so you killed her.”
“When would I have had the opportunity?”
“She could have come in here as a patient. Maybe she had a sinus infection or something and needed antibiotics. You could have strangled her, and then you could have called a code blue, or whatever you Brits call it, and then gotten a nurse to help you put her in the cooler.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I think you cleaned the cooler to get rid of Leonie’s blood.”
“But she wasn’t bleeding. She was dead.”
“You know, it bothered me that you said she died at five thirty-five, because she was still warm and dripping blood when the roof opened at seven. That’s an hour and a half. She had to be alive when she was crushed in the roof. I think that when she regained consciousness in the cooler and started flailing around in there it raised her blood pressure enough for her to start bleeding again. That’s why you had to clean the cooler, and that’s why I want to take a swab.”
“In case I missed something.”
“Exactly.”
“I suppose now you’re going to accuse me of killing Joe Gerard too.”
/>
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility that you did,” I said. “Look at it from our point of view. You call Officer Grant to report a murder. We run down to security and find Joe on the floor with you bending over him. Nobody else.”
Rob looked puzzled. “I didn’t call Grant.”
“Then how did he know about it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Grant woke us up and told us there’d been another murder. He said you’d called him.”
Rob shrugged and turned his palms up. “I didn’t.”
I looked at him narrowly. He seemed sincere, but I knew he’d lied before, so I remained suspicious. “Whatever. Joe was supposed to get Meacham to relieve him. But guess what? No Meacham. Meacham has still not been found. So if Joe didn’t call Meacham, who called you?”
“Meacham called me,” Rob said. “That is, I assumed it was Meacham. Then he left.”
“And went where?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, since we can’t find Meacham, he can’t corroborate that. You could be lying about that too.”
“To what purpose?”
“I told you all about watching the security tapes. I told you Joe was supposed to get Meacham to relieve him so he could e-mail the incriminating video to Scotland Yard. That’s why you assumed it was Meacham who called you, because you knew he was supposed to be there. You told me the story of Bert Meacham. I found that story on the Internet, just the way you told it. You could have done that just to get us suspecting somebody who probably doesn’t even exist.”
“He does exist,” Rob said. “I’ve met him.”
“Oh, you’ve met him? On this cruise? When?”
“I did his physical, along with everybody else’s in the crew.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “You’ve met him. But since we’re being hypothetical here, this is the scenario I propose. You went to security right after I left you. You conked Joe over the head to disable him, and you killed Meacham. You’ve hidden his body somewhere, and that’s why nobody’s seen him. Then you notified Officer Grant when Joe’s shift was over so that nobody else would find him first.”
“And I did this why?”
“To prevent Joe from e-mailing incriminating video of you and Lynch crushing Leonie in the roof to Scotland Yard.”
The Body on the Lido Deck Page 25